The Tracey Yokas Blog

Ten tips, honed over the years. . .

If you've never been tattooed or haven't been tattooed for a long time, walking into a shop can be scary. I've gotten multiple tattoos over a span of about 20 years, the last just a week ago. If you're thinking about getting ink, here are my top ten tips to help the process go smoothly.

What I'm reading and how it helped. . .

There is no answer, no magic bullet, no potion “out there.” For a long time I believed I took up all the wrong kind of space in this world. I judged myself, harshly, based on the double digit size of my pants, and I felt “less than” because I didn’t live up to society’s expectations of how I should appear, or my own. Reading this one book didn’t eradicate this belief, and I still have plenty of tough days, but this one book did remind me there is something better than “endlessly pushing the boulder of obsession up the mountain.”

What I'm reading. . .

The other day I was scrolling through my morning Facebook feed when I saw a meme that stopped my pointer finger in its track. The meme, posted by a friend of mine, read, “Sometimes the strongest among us are the ones who smile through silent pain, cry behind closed doors, and fight battles no one knows about.”